


Aurora

by useless_slytherclaw



Category: Fairy Tail
Genre: Angst, Canon Compliant, Emotional Baggage, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Hurt/Comfort, Light Angst, M/M, Nature, Winter
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-31
Updated: 2020-08-31
Packaged: 2021-03-06 17:28:10
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,183
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26202667
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/useless_slytherclaw/pseuds/useless_slytherclaw
Summary: Gray and Jellal take a trip north back to Gray's old home.  Gray shows Jellal the beauty of the aurora borealis.Their eyes meet for a moment before Gray turns away, and Gray’s dark eyes shine with the reflected light of hundreds of stars.Jellal has always loved the heavens.
Relationships: Jellal Fernandes/Gray Fullbuster
Comments: 2
Kudos: 11
Collections: Fairy Tail LGBTales, Fairy Tail Reverse Bang 2020





	Aurora

**Author's Note:**

> This work is based one this beautiful art [ this beautiful piece of art](https://x-thekid.tumblr.com/post/628006086215172096/its-big-bang-time-baby-my-first-submission-for) by [The Kid](https://x-thekid.tumblr.com/) and it was beta read by [Divine Burrito](https://archiveofourown.org/users/DivineBurrito/pseuds/DivineBurrito)

Jellal has never been this far north, not even during his days wandering with Crime Sorciere. He’s never had a reason to.

His eyes stray to his left where Gray walks beside him. Jellal can see in the set of his mouth and the softness around his eyes that the ice mage is entirely untroubled even though the air around them is the bitter sort of cold that steals the oxygen from your lungs as you breathe.

Gray has his hands shoved into his pockets, but Jellal can tell by the relaxed lines of his shoulders that it’s from habit and not from cold. Plus, his coat- which is more for fashion than warmth in the first place- is open, exposing the shirt underneath. He doesn’t think Gray can actually feel cold anymore. 

Jellal watches his partner as they walk with only the soft squeak of snow under their feet to accompany them. It’s the sound of dry snow, the kind he has only seen before in the dead of winter, which falls on the coldest nights.

It should be dark here with only the stars and the moon to guide them. Jellal is used to the deep darkness of night far away from a city or a fire from the many nights spent outside as he traveled around Fiore. But the silver light from above shatters into a million million pieces under their feet so that the world seems to glow faintly.

He almost feels as if he’s stepped clean off the earth and into another dimension. Almost, he feels like an intruder, as his breath clouds the clear air and his feet disturb the smooth snow under his feet. The chill of the air claws at his lungs and seeps into his bones as if it wishes to claim him for its own, to make him part of this place. 

But, while Jellal might be an intruder, Gray is anything but. A poet might say that he looks like he rules the place but that’s not quite right. It’s deeper than that. He is  _ of _ this place. The silver moonlight on his skin, the white line of his shoulders against the stars, the darkness of his hair, every bit of him belongs here. Dizzying patterns of ice spread from his footsteps, not disturbing the snow, but complimenting it. 

It was Gray’s idea that they come here, of course. After he was pardoned, Jellal had gone straight to Fairy Tail and to Gray. While he waited for Gray and Natsu to finish whatever they were fighting about, he’d thanked Makarov and Erza for everything they’d done for him.

He hadn’t known what to expect when he talked to Gray. Their relationship up until that point hadn’t been on and off exactly, but there’s only so much a relationship can be when it’s forged entirely of stolen moments between battles and journeys. 

“I’ve been pardoned,” he had said. “I’m free.” 

He hadn’t said, ‘I’m free to be with you,’ because even though he wanted to, he didn’t know what Gray wanted. They’d whispered about the future together when they sat under the stars outside of Magnolia. But Jellal refused to be a shackle or chain. He’d happily follow Gray to the end of the earth, but only if Gray wanted him to. But Gray had smiled; every time Jellal saw that smile he wondered how he had ever thought Gray was cold and aloof.

He hadn’t expected Gray to come to him the next day and ask if he would go on a journey with him. 

“I get it if you don’t want to,” Gray had said, and there was a tension in his shoulders that denied his relaxed poise and voice. “You probably just want to rest now that you don’t have the crown chasing after you. You’ve been wandering around for years. But… I need to get away for a while, and I’d- well… I’d like it if you came with me.”

“Of course I’ll go with you,” Jellal had said immediately and watched the tension ease out of the other man’s body. 

And he had. Gray had led them north, leaving Fiore behind. He hadn’t questioned the reason behind the journey; he figured that Gray would tell him when he’s ready. While he only knows bits and pieces of Gray’s past picked up from comments by both Gray and Ultear, he also knows what it’s like to have a past that’s almost too painful to talk about.

“It’s beautiful isn’t it?” Gray’s voice brings Jellal back to the present moment. 

“Yes,” Jellal says, but his eyes aren’t on the scenery, they’re on Gray, who’s looking away from him, across the field of snow towards the trees and mountains in the distance. 

“I’ve missed this. It’s not that Fiore isn’t beautiful, but-” his voice trails off.

“There’s nothing like this.”

“Exactly.”

Gray turns his head to look at Jellal and takes a step so that they are close enough to touch. Jellal takes his hand, closing the distance between them.

“You’re cold,” Gray says with faint surprise as their hands meet, and Jellal laughs.

“It  _ is _ cold,” he points out.

“I guess it is,” Gray says and he rubs the back of his neck with his free hand. “Sorry. Do you want my coat? I don’t need it.”

“I’m fine,” Jellal says. He’s not in danger of freezing, and Gray’s coat wouldn’t fit him anyway. “Thanks though.”

He closes the distance between them to kiss Gray. It’s really only a brush of lips on lips, but the warmth of Gray’s lips against his chilled ones almost burns. When he pulls back, he’s greeted by a smile, and he feels warmer. 

“Ever since you told me that you loved the night sky, I’ve wanted to bring you here,” Gray says quietly. It’s a quiet, fragile sounding admission, and Jellal tightens his grip on Gray’s hand.

Without looking away, Jellal tells him, “I’m glad you did.” Then he turns his eyes up to the heavens. They’ve come far enough north that the stars have changed their position in the sky. 

“The sky seems closer here,” he tells Gray and his voice is quiet too. He pauses, his eyes on the stars. “In the tower, I used to watch the stars at night. They were so beautiful, but so far away… Unreachable. I used to dream of being able to watch them without bars in the way.”   


Gray squeezes his hand, “Now you can.”

“Now I can,” Jellal agrees, and there’s a small smile on his face. Before he can say anything else something green flickers at the edge of his vision. Immediately his attention is up, ready for an attack. “What?”

“It’s about to start,” Gray says unhelpfully. But Jellal notices the undercurrent of excitement in his voice.

“What’s about to start?”

“Look,” Gray says and points to the north. 

A soft gasp leaves Jellal’s lips. The sky, which had been the empty blue-black of the night, is now shot through with banners of pink and purple and green. They seem to ripple slowly like silk dancing on the wind.

“Have you ever seen anything like it?” Gray asks quietly, wrapping his arms around Jellal’s waist.

Jellal can only shake his head as his eyes trace the pattern of dancing lights. Gray huffs a small laugh into his neck. 

“Let’s sit for a while and watch,” Gray suggests, and Jellal nods. With a motion of his hands, Gray lays out a layer of ice so they can sit without sinking into the snow. As they sit, Jellal turns his attention to Gray, who still has a smile on his face. Jellal wraps an arm around the ice mage, letting his cloak fall over both of them. 

When Gray leans into his embrace, the warmth that spreads through Jellal isn’t only from his body heat. Jellal rests his head on Gray’s and they sit in silence for a while. Jellal’s eyes trace the dancing motion of the lights in the sky. The snow reflects the light of the aurora, painting their whole world in varying shades of green and pink. In the hush, there is only the quiet sound of their breathing to disturb the air, and Jellal can almost hear the quiet melody of the dancing sky.

He’s not sure how, but he can feel the shift in Gray’s mood as his silence becomes pensive. But Jellal doesn’t disturb him, he only waits to see if Gray will speak.

“Do you believe in absolution,” Gray asks him at last. 

It’s a question that Jellal has asked himself at least hundreds of times when the weight of his crimes is bearing down on him, and he wonders if he will ever be free. Despite the years that he has spent trying to atone for his sins, all he can tell Gray is this: “I have to.”

Gray nods. 

There are words he holds in his heart that he rarely has the courage to speak. But here, at the end of the world, there is nothing but the sky and the snow and the space between them and somehow it is easier to speak.

“I’m not sure that the guilt will ever go away,” Jellal says and his eyes are on the sky. If he looks down at Gray, he might not be able to speak. In his mind, though, he sees the tower of heaven and the people he kept trapped inside. “I’ve done things… Things that I thought were unforgivable. My sins have hurt more people than I can name.”

“But that’s not you anymore,” Gray says, and the ghost of a smile lifts the corner of Jellal’s lip.

“I could say the same to you. But what I wanted to say is that, even if there is no absolution, no escape from the guilt, there is forgiveness… Even for someone like me.”

“Forgiveness, eh?” Gray says and his gaze drops from the sky to the snow in front of him. But Jellal can tell by the expression on his face that he isn’t seeing the snow. 

“There are two types of forgiveness, actually,” Jellal says and turns his eyes back to the sky. “The first is easiest; it’s when others forgive you. The second is the hard one because you have to forgive yourself.”

Gray makes a non-commital sound that is neither agreement nor disagreement, so Jellal keeps going.

“You didn’t know Ultear very well, but I did,” he smiles wryly, “or I knew her as well as anyone other than Meredy.”

“Are you going to tell me that she forgave me?” Gray asks, and there’s something that Jellal can’t quite read in his voice. 

“Not exactly,” Jellal said. “She didn’t think there was anything to forgive you for. She didn’t blame you.”

Jellal hears the air leaving Gray’s lungs. His voice is slightly shaky when he speaks, “I-her mother. How did she-”

“I don’t know everything,” Jellal says. “Ultear was a very private person. She saw her mother’s memories when she fell into the water off of Tenrou Island. I don’t know what she saw, but she realized that she had been blaming the wrong people.”

Gray shakes his head. He still blames himself, and maybe he always will. Jellal didn’t expect to change his mind with one sentence. He knows how hard it is to let go of your guilt. They sit in silence again. Jellal watches the stars and waits; he can feel that Gray isn’t done with the conversation.

There’s no way of knowing how long they sit like this. Time seems to stretch into infinity here in this pocket of the universe they’ve managed to claim for just themselves. 

“Ultear sacrificed herself,” Gray says quietly, “and saved me.”

There’s an echo to the guilt in Gray’s voice in Jellal’s heart. But Jellal, like the others in Crime Sorciere, can understand her sacrifice in a way most people never will. 

“Yes,” Jellal says, “she saved many people. It’s normal to feel guilty for living because she died. Sometimes I still do. But you have to remember that Ultear did what she did because she wanted to.” Jellal pauses again as he struggles to put words to the things he wants to say. “You asked me if I believed in absolution. Ultear had struggled to and had started to believe that it would never come, but in her sacrifice, she found both absolution and happiness.”

The conversation lapses again into silence, but Jellal doesn’t mind the stop-start pace of it. It fits somehow. 

“Thank you,” Gray says quietly. 

“No need,” Jellal says and turns to face Gray.

Gray smiles and leans in to kiss him. It’s brief and then he is pulling away and standing up. He reaches out a hand to pull Jellal to his feet.

“No point in sitting around forever. We’ve still got a while to go.”

Their eyes meet for a moment before Gray turns away, and Gray’s dark eyes shine with the reflected light of hundreds of stars. 

Jellal has always loved the heavens.

**Author's Note:**

> I'm so happy to get to write something for this beautiful art. It's my first time writing this pair. I hope I did justice to the pairing and to the lovely art.  
> Let me know what you thought and leave a comment below!


End file.
